Connected

"I know there's an invisible string that's going from my heart to your heart. But sometimes I feel like it's going around a corner and it's getting stretched out so thin."

I yelled I love you out the window to my son as I dropped him off at highschool. Even though his friends were close by. Even though he's 14. He didn't mind. He still hugs me in public places when he needs a little love. We are connected. 

For two hours they've all been gone. One wore all camo for the new teacher He has been so looking forward to because he is sure his teacher likes it. One rode his bike to school so he could get there early on his own terms and in control of his own schedule. The little one ran off to his friends without a second look, so very happy to be with them just like me. 

I can see each of their selves in their own personal styles, so different from eachother. Classic and simple, the bmx guy, the 4th grader who thinks camo is cool, and the 6 year old with his collared button up and cardigan. I loosely hold the reins and let them take the lead, have their preferences and interests. This keeps us connected. 

It's the first day of school. A normal year we hope one without masks and distancing. Where they can sit close with their friends and lean over a book, high-five in gym class and wrestle at recess. 

Dad makes breakfast, a smoothie with the last of the peaches, eggs and hashbrowns. Lunches and waterbottles are loaded into backpacks, bright new shoes at the ready. Things they have carefully chosen, decisions they have made about what they like and want. Not just things but who they are and want to be, how they interact with others, what they want to do and be a part of, things they want to achieve. 

All day alone I feel the pull from my heart to theirs. My mind is working planning ahead for supper, an afterschool snack so it is free to listen, listen, listen when they get home to all they have to say. Listen underneath the surface too for what they feel. 

All this long last year and a half we have been together and I consider how together does not mean connected. How 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' can be true. How an abundance of time can push us apart as much as it brings us together. How a little distance, a little room and variety thickens up that string until it's nice and stout and we are connected. 

Wanted

You know that thing where people with grown kids tell people with little kids
You're gonna miss this
I know what they mean
Yes you'll miss their chubby cheeks and wispy curls and heavy bodies nestled into you
But you know what it really is?
The thing they're really missing 

is being liked and adored and wanted so much

I have spent 13 years being loved and needed

That long time of being steeped and drenched in love
Even when I wanted to be free, even when I was exhausted or intellectually starved I was marinated in love

And now I'm not

Yes they still love me but they are growing relationships with others, they are becoming resourceful on their own
The need for me and interest in me is making room for their evolving which is wonderful and joyful in another way

It's not wrong of my husband that he doesn't love me and need me and want me and like me every second like four babies do
He loves me like a normal grown up with personal space and time apart and differences of opinion

This occurs to me and I realise this is what a normal adult life is like

Just being yourself, doing your thing, not receiving a constant stream of toddler love oxytocin as I have been

This is what the people mean when they say 

You're gonna miss this

And I have to get used to it
this price of freedom 

Four

Tucking in four children takes a lot

They all need different attention, 

dìfferent kinds of listening,

different comforts

Four different moods,

four different essences to absorb and understand

to breath back out what they need to breath in

Four different souls to sooth and quiet

down towards sleep

Each one feels so different to cuddle

Four different types of love

Love It While I'm In It

Today

Oh today

Today was one of those days.

A day where you got to shower and wash your hair with out feeling like you were swimming upstream to do it. 

A a day in which you got to eat breakfast peacefully.

A calm feeling day. 

Today was a day to skype with your traveling sister and feel happy with all four kids crowding your body. 

It was a day to go to play in the water without gathering a million supplies, just a couple of  towels and a handful of granola bars and off we go!

Today was a day to love my children

for my heart to drink them all in and love how they are in this moment

today.

For my boy to be big enough to stay home by himself and me to be happy for him.

A day for my heart to swell as one helped the other climb up the tall side of something at the park.  

Their muscly little bodies mirroring each other,

 one reaching up and one reaching down

hands clasped as they pulled each other up.

A day to sit with my baby in the leaf dappled sunshine as he smiled and kicked completely happy to do just what he always wants, 

to be by me 

be with me

and for me to be with him. 

A day to listen and marvel at the interesting things they say, 

to glimpse how they think, what they imagine.

To glow with each new word practiced and learned.

Today was a day to drive through the fields and watch the haying, harvesting

see the horses and cows with their babies.

to paint all the colors of the grass in my mind.

A day to love as I do every time that I see it, the big sky with it's sun and storms and towers of clouds all happening at once, a different view in every direction.

Today was a day in which, when I lay down with the two smalls for a story and watched them with their heads on the same pillow and they asked me

why are you crying

I could say that my heart was so full of love that it burst

and the extra spilled out of my eyes.

Today was a day that was good.

(Then he said, " Well, pft, why are you sad about loving us???" I explained that they were happy tears but like, clearly, Mom that doesn't make any sense.)

 

 

 

Today I will remember

 the way the wind blew Oliver's hair

 as he ran outside.

He looked like he was flying as he ran along

 happy and free as only a little boy can

 in rubber boots and bare legs.

The world around him blurred bringing him into sharp focus.

He was all I could see

bright and clear all yellow hair and rosy cheeks, blue shirt and boots.

He let himself out of the house and ran to join his brothers,

away from the suggestion of a nap that he new was brewing in my mind.

I let him go

 watched as he ran free in the thawing air

and my heart ran with him.

Watched as he picked a clump of grass,

lifted his face to the sun,

 then ran to me to show the handful of 'hair' that he had picked.

'Is grass the hair of the earth?' I ask

Back and forth he runs, up and down, in shadow and full light,

happy and free,

the wind blowing his hair. 

 

 



A Few Good Things

Just so I don't forget.

The sweetest bird is twittering outside my window, it has been for days.

The grass is greening and the sun is sunny.

One sweet friend brought me really yummy muffins last week.

  

Another decided to feed me and had us over for dinner, 

she is also wonderful at distracting the repetitive thought loops that keep playing in my mind and is so encouraging. 

The hardworking ladies that are with me in primary who make sure everything is taken care of. 

All the positive people I connect with.

(facebook friends, Holla!)

I really like my bedroom, 

(for the first time ever.)

My  Mom is going to stay with me for five days.

My torpedo belly feels pretty good. 

Tulips.

The beautiful, new to us, vehicle we were so lucky to get just in time to fit our bigering family. 

This man I get to be with who is still beyond what I imagined.

I feel so so grateful and so so blessed. 

I am going to start waxing sappy if I keep going so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

I just wanted to be able to remember this in the dark of winter so I can always feel all the goodness that is all around me. 

Six Days of Love Songs for Six Years of Love

Day 1

Annie's Song

Our first 'our song'.

Mary

I love being pregnant at Christmas.  

Maybe because I feel things more with a little baby growing inside me.

I think about Mary a lot.

How she experienced all that she did.

All that traveling at the end.

Giving birth in a barn.

It makes the whole thing feel more special, more holy.

When I am pregnant, I feel a connection to her.

Not because I am anything like her but the connection all pregnant women have,

we know what the other is feeling, physically, partly emotionally too.

We know what is coming for each other.

Every woman who is growing a baby is so special and at Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, being pregnant really helps me to think of him, because babies are so much on my mind already.

It also very much makes me think of Mary, celebrate and revere her.  

For doing what she did.

For being the woman to bear our Lord and bring him into this world.

For being willing.

And for doing it under the least desirable of circumstances.

What a true woman.  

I love these thoughts, I am glad that my circumstances help me to truly feel love during this time

Because that is why He came.

How to tell your husband loves you:

Mine does nice things for me when I am sick,

like bring me treats...

Yummy!

(p.s.  those things on the cupcakes are Rings! Oh yes he did!)

From the Mouths of Babes

Have been feeling so bad.  All kinds of awful thoughts in my head about how I don't like my life (but I really do), being a mom, thinking how bad I am at it, wishing I was doing something else (but I don't even know what), how much I do wrong and thinking how I don't even deserve the children I have and how I probably shouldn't have any more and subject them to me and how maybe (dare I say this aloud?) I made a 

huge mistake

that there's no way to fix. 

Trying to figure it out, wanting to be more grateful for all of the goodness and what I have and just wanting to get over myself and be better at everything I'm hating about myself. 

 Begging Heavenly Father to help me, please.

Because I'm trying really hard to 'fulfill my calling' but I don't like it and it doesn't make me happy though I've always been told it should.  I'm sitting there with all these words big and loud and sneakily whispering in my head asking Heavenly Father for help.

Big E (at whom I'd just yelled) looks straight at me and says, 

"Mommy, I love you.  

You are my very best Mother."

With his clear brown eyes and his beautiful face gazing at me there was my answer.  All my bad thoughts washed away in one wave.  Big E is my own miracle and the answer to my torment. With those words spoken right then I have reassurance that is more than just the warming of my heart from the words of my sweet son.

I am doing what I am supposed to do.  

Even though it's not what I dreamed of doing while I was growing up.  It's not what I wished and hoped to do    (though it's pretty much where my imagination of reality ended since it's all I was taught to picture for my future.)  I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and for being obedient Heavenly Father will help me figure it out and help me find the way to be happy while doing it. 

This is my weapon for when these dark thoughts come creeping in again.  I will remember that I have this to fight them off with.  From the perfect lips of my son came God's answer to my prayer and I'll take that answer in all it's possible meanings.  

I still have a lot to figure out, and now I feel like that is possible. 

P.S.  This is not a cry for pats on the back and affirmations that I am a good mother.  

Has anyone ever felt remotely like this?  I'd love to know how you reconciled it.  

Women

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with an old friend I was recently united with.  As we talked, sharing intimate details of our recent experiences with miscarriage I thought again of something that has come to me strongly several times before.  

The universal connectedness of women.  

Through all the vast diversity of  our cultures, religions, upbringing, location in the world, and life circumstances we are joined together by the sameness of our experiences.  Child bearing, child rearing, separation from our families, love, loss, the men in our lives, working for our families, loneliness, strength from adversity, pain, joy and sometimes, peace. 

We all have the same desires in our hearts.  

We all have the same heart. 

 Whenever I have met a woman from another place, New Zealand, Dubai, Pakistan, Taiwan, Lebanon, Lybia, Brazil, and Africa as we get to know each other it stands out so clearly, we are women, we are the same, we have the same hearts.  

We have the same desires.  

Sure we have vastly different personalities, wants, interests but we are women.  All different yes, but at our core we are all the same and all connected.  I feel so full of love for all my sisters.  For every woman in the world who is figuring out how to be who they are, who is trying to live her faith, who is trying to make life good for her family, who is dealing with the challenges that come with the men in their lives, who is struggling with loneliness or sadness or loss.  

I feel it too, we all feel it.  

Let's feel it together. 

Let's be friends, to listen to each other, to cry and laugh together.  When there are happy things lets have joy for one another.  Let's be understanding.  Understanding that while we are all wonderfully unique, imperfect and fallible we are also the same and we are all connected as women. 

We are marvelous, strong and good all over the world and 

we are Women. 

My Birthday Boy

My very special little boy is now four.  Not in any way a baby any more. I miss that little baby so much.  I was so proud of him for just existing.  He was so amazing and smart.  He was so much better than the other babies (I'm sure yours was too).  I pretty much thought he was a grown up by the time he was six weeks.  Looking back at pictures of his sweet little toddler self I feel a little sad, a deep sadness and a longing to have him little like that again.  So I can savor it.  Just hold him gently and look and look and drink him in.  Stroke his chubby cheeks and smooth his soft hair.  Let him be a tiny person and not expect him to be a big one.

It's not too late though.  I can still to that with him now.  I can let him be four and not expect him to be six (or eight).  I can enjoy his four year old quirks.  I can explore things he is interested in with him.  I can not be rushing him to the next stage.  I am excited for where we are now.  It is really enjoyable to talk with him, listen to his ideas.  It feels so good to see his brown eyes wide with wonder at new discoveries.  He asks questions about everything, loving to understand the world.  I'm glad I realized this in time.  In time to enjoy the rest of his childhood.  Then when I look back I will feel such satisfaction knowing that I am enjoying it while I am in it.  And I will only feel love and peace remembering my four old boy and the way we savored being four together.

There are great things to come for him.

My special little boy. 

Sleeping in the Dirt

Trying to end the Sneak Out of Bed game before it starts and make lying in bed seem more enticing and fun I tell Little e some things.  Not everyone gets to lie in a soft cozy bed with blankets and a fluffy pillow.  Some kids have to lie on the fl- (I better reword, he looves to sleep on the floor, he's been napping there all week) some kids don't get to lie on a bed at all.  They have to lie on the dirt on a piece of cardboard and they don't have their special blue blankie.  You are so lucky to have this cozy bed!

His response, "I want to sweep in the dirt."  

That kid is so adorable!  I can see the appeal, dirt is soft too and you can do so many neat things with it.  

I've been re-falling in love with him.  Ever since I started being more firm and in charge with him his sweet little self shows so much more and our love is blossoming.  (sounds lame I know but it's the only way to describe it).  We are closer, he is more obedient, helpful and affectionate. It only took a couple of weeks of concentrated effort to dramatically change the dynamic between us.  It is so encouraging, patience and love and the right kind of authority ended his defiance and replaced with willingness and trust. He wraps his little arms around my legs and tells me he, "loves me sooo much!" several times a day.  I am more patient and calm, which changes everything.  I have a better sense of humor and am more understanding, less demanding.  We play and have fun together.  

We like each other.